The present invention relates to endless track for track-laying vehicles and more particularly relates to flexors employed in such track for interconnecting and providing flexure between adjacent track link sections.
It is known in the art to construct a flexor so as to have a tensile load-carrying core formed from a stack of thin metal plates and to encase this stack of plates in a protective elastomeric coating. The use of a stack of thin plates instead of a single plate was occasioned by the fact that a single plate made flexible enough to undergo resilient bending, as when passing around a drive sprocket driving the track embodying the flexor, would not have the requisite cross section to carry the desired tensile load when in a bent state. U.S. Pat. No. 4,451,097 granted to Wohlford on May 29, 1984 illustrates a flexor having multiple plates. This usage of multiple plates results in a relatively complex and expensive structure.